The conference on the planning and control of large programming projects
A. S. Douglas · ITNOW · 1971
The three main themes of this event, held in London recently, covered the properties of a well planned project, its control, and the manpower associated with it. Speakers included large user representatives as well as those from software houses. Mr P. M. R. Hermon, Management Services Director of BOAC, urged us to recognise the needs of top management for results, and to work to close the credibility gap he believed existed between the views of those advocating computers and of top management. Some large projects in the US were so badly conceived and run that they had foundered; many computer projects were late or had cost more than originally estimated. This had led to a lack of confidence in proposals made to management, which could only be restored by better performance by computer people as project managers. Although he felt that managers of large computer projects must primarily be competent managers, nevertheless he considered they must also be technically qualified. He emphasised the importance of long term planning and pointed out that the BOADTCEA implementation had been planned for a life of more than ten years at an overall cost of more than £50 million; each phase had been financially justified so far as possible.